Re: McKinley: Re: more authors(long!)

>can anyone suggest any books by any of these authors?(please): alice hoffman
 
>charles de lint
An author of variable quality. He tells a good story, and
his characterization is good, but, at least in the books I've
read, a tendency to let his Message get in the way of the
story.

_Jack the Giant Killer_ was the best of his that I've read
so far. An urban fantasy with the magic mixing with the
modern city and being both convincingly magical and
convincingly modern. Not a mix that happens very often.
I understand that it has a sequel & the two have been
published together (as _Drink Down the Moon_, I think), but
I haven't read the sequel.

_Someplace to Be Flying_ was a page-turner; once again
the characterization was good & the magic & modern mixed well.
This time the myths & magic come from Native American myth,
which is an unusual twist. But--the Message is clearly there,
lurking not so very far in the back, and just at the end, it
jumps out and obscures the story. It's worth checking
out of the library & reading, but don't buy it until you've
read it & liked it.

_The Little Country_ got too long for me, not in terms of
pages, exactly, just that the story sagged, so that I ended
up skimming. It also had some seriously darker bits. I
usually don't read fantasy to see the world from a psychopathic
killer's point of view, which is one of the P.O.V.'s in
this story (one of the reasons the story got so long was that
_every single character_ had at least one P.O.V. scene). This
darker aspect may not bother you, but I thought I'd give the
warning.

The book he wrote for the Brian Froud series is extremely
heavy-handed on the environmental message. So was Patricia
McKillip's book in the series, so that may just be a part
of the series.

Well. Long on DeLint. But not much to say about anyone
else; I've not read any of their work & look forward to
others' replies.

REPLY p.p.s. - who was thomas the rhymer? Do try the Tam Lin
site someone else reccomended. It has the whole ballad.

Jessica

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Received on Tue Jun 9 14:07:58 1998